ALL STRINGS ATTACHED

IF intimacy is portable, singer-songwriter Prateek Kuhad has been plugging it in our lives for more than a decade now.

- PRIYAMVADA RANA

There's a song for everyone in his repertoire. For those in search of love for a long time, his song 'With You For You' is a wistful ode to being emotionally tethered to someone. For those in love for the first time, the single 'Tum Jab Paas' arouses a sensation resembling that initial spark of romance. But love is not always lovely. Kuhad is wary of both its fantasies and complexities. His intense heartbreak album Cold/Mess became viral in 2018 for evoking a relationship at its most raw and turbulent the pain of letting a loved one go.

Kuhad is on a roll with a big 48-city Silhouettes Tour that promotes his 2022 album The Way That Lovers Do. After covering North America, the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the UAE, and Nepal, he mesmerised Indian audiences in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad and is coming to DelhiNCR today.

Life in songs

Kuhad's songs usually pendulate between universal themes of romance, heartbreak, solitude and melancholy. Many of them are borrowed from different phases of his life - from a Jaipur boy embracing the newness and cultural shock of New York at New York University to planning to quit his regular job for a full-fledged music career in Delhi. For instance, his 2011 eponymous debut album had a song "There's Something Wrong With The Way I Think' which is a reflection of how life falls apart when you don't pursue the work you're passionate about. It marked his official entry into the indie music scene.

Later albums like In Tokens and Charms and Cold/Messwhich later catapulted into a 6-track EP echoed the trials and tribulations of being in love.